The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2)

by J. Holland Rose

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE FIRST ABDICATION

It now remained to be seen whether Napoleon would make a wise use of his successes. While the Grand Army drew in its columns behind the sheltering line of the Seine at Troyes, the French Emperor strove to reap in diplomacy the fruits of his military prowess. In brief, he sought to detach Austria from the Coalition. From Nogent he wrote, on February 21st, to the Emperor Francis, dwelling on the impolicy of Austria continuing the war. Why should she subordinate her policy to that of England and to the personal animosities of the Czar? Why should she see her former Belgian provinces handed over to a Protestant Dutch Prince about to be allied with the House of Brunswick by marriage? France would never give up Belgium; and he, as French Emperor, would never sign a peace that would drive her from the Rhine and exclude her from the circle of the Great Powers. But if Austria really wished for the equilibrium of Europe, he (Napoleon) was ready to forget the past and make peace on the basis of the Frankfurt terms.[415]

Had these offers been rather less exacting, and reached the allied headquarters a week earlier, they might have led to the break up of the Coalition. For the political situation of the allies had been even more precarious than that of their armies. The pretensions of the Czar had excited indignation and alarm. Swayed to and fro between the counsels of his old tutor, Laharpe, now again at his side, and his own autocratic instincts, he declared that he would push on to Paris, consult the will of the French people by a plébiscite, and abide by its decision, even if it gave a new lease of power to Napoleon. But side by side with this democratic proposal came another of a more despotic type, that the military Governor of Paris must be a Russian officer.

The amusement caused by these odd notions was overshadowed by alarm. Metternich, Castlereagh, and Hardenberg saw in them a ruse for foisting on France either Bernadotte, or an orientalized Republic, or a Muscovite version of the Treaty of Tilsit. Then again, on February 9th, Alexander sent a mandate to the plenipotentiaries at Châtillon, requesting that their sessions should be suspended, though he had recently agreed at Langres to enter into negotiations with France, provided that the military operations were not suspended. Evidently, then, he was bent on forcing the hands of his allies, and Austria feared that he might at the end of the war insist on her taking Alsace, as a set-off to the loss of Eastern Galicia which he wished to absorb. So keen was the jealousy thus aroused, that at Troyes Metternich and Hardenberg signed a secret agreement to prevent the Czar carrying matters with a high hand at Paris (February 14th); and on the same day they sent him a stiff Note requesting the resumption of the negotiations with Napoleon. Indeed, Austria formally threatened to withdraw her troops from the war, unless he limited his aims to the terms propounded by the allies at Châtillon. Alexander at first refused; but the news of Blücher's disasters shook his determination, and he assented on that day, provided that steps were at once taken to lighten the pressure on the Russian corps serving under Blücher. Thus, by February 14th, the crisis was over.[416]

Schwarzenberg cautiously pushed on three columns to attract the thunderbolts that otherwise would have destroyed the Silesian Army root and branch; and he succeeded. True, his vanguard was beaten at Montereau; but, by drawing Napoleon south and then east of the Seine, he gave time to Blücher to strengthen his shattered array and resume the offensive. Meanwhile Bülow, with the northern army, began to draw near to the scene of action, and on the 23rd the allies took the wise step of assigning his corps, along with those of Winzingerode, Woronzoff, and Strogonoff, to the Prussian veteran. The last three corps were withdrawn from the army of Bernadotte, and that prince was apprized of the fact by the Czar in a rather curt letter.

The diplomatic situation had also cleared up before Napoleon's letter reached the Emperor Francis. The negotiations with Caulaincourt were resumed at Châtillon on February the 17th; and there is every reason to think that Austria, England, Prussia, and perhaps even Russia would now gladly have signed peace with Napoleon on the basis of the French frontiers of 1791, provided that he renounced all claims to interference in the affairs of Europe outside those limits.[417]

These demands would certainly have been accepted by the French plenipotentiary had he listened to his own pacific promptings. But he was now in the most painful position. Maret had informed him, the day after Montmirail, that Napoleon was set on keeping the Rhenish and Alpine frontiers.[418] He could, therefore, do nothing but temporize. He knew how precarious was the military supremacy just snatched by his master, and trusted that a few days more would bring wisdom before it was too late. But his efforts for delay were useless.

While he was marking time, Napoleon was sending him despatches instinct with pride. "I have made 30,000 to 40,000 prisoners," he wrote on the 17th: "I have taken 200 cannon, a great number of generals, and destroyed several armies, almost without striking a blow. I yesterday checked Schwarzenberg's army, which I hope to destroy before it recrosses my frontier." And two days later, after hearing the allied terms, he wrote that they would make the blood of every Frenchman boil with indignation, and that he would dictate his ultimatum at Troyes or Châtillon. Of course, Caulaincourt kept these diatribes to himself, but his painfully constrained demeanour betrayed the secret that he longed for peace and that his hands were tied.

On all sides proofs were to be seen that Napoleon would never give up Belgium and the Rhine frontier. When the allies (at the suggestion of Schwarzenberg, and with the approval of the Czar) sued for an armistice, he forbade his envoys to enter into any parleys until the allies agreed to accept the "natural frontiers" as the basis for a peace, and retired in the meantime on Alsace, Lorraine, and Holland.[419] These last conditions he agreed three days later to relax; but on the first point he was inexorable, and he knew that the military commissioners appointed to arrange the truce had no power to agree to the political article which he made a sine quâ non.